Turkey deports 2 Germans accused of ISIS links: Interior Ministry
ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Turkey’s Interior Ministry said on Wednesday that it had sent back two German nationals accused of membership in the so-called Islamic State.
According to an Interior Ministry statement, the two Germans were deported for “links to the ISIS terrorist group.”
Turkey began to repatriate foreign fighters, especially those with membership to the terror group, in its detention in early November, starting with a US national.
The identity of most of the suspects has not been revealed.
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On Monday, Turkey’s Interior Ministry said in a statement that 11 “foreign terrorist fighters” had been sent back to France.
Elsewhere, on Monday, an Australian national suspected of fighting with a foreign terrorist group in Syria faced pre-trial after he was arrested upon his arrival from Turkey to Australia.
In November, Turkey’s Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu warned that Ankara would return foreign Islamic State detainees to their native countries, even if their citizenship had been revoked.
According to Soylu, Turkey currently has around 1,200 foreign Islamic State members in its prisons, including relatives of the suspects.
“We are not a hotel” for any country’s Islamic State members, he said at the time.
Many nations in the European Union or abroad fear that due to a lack of evidence of criminal wrongdoing, Islamic State supporters could be quickly released once they appear in court after returning home.